BEIJING - President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States has charted a new course defining the nature of Sino-US relations in the coming decade, Chinese officials and experts say.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at the close of Hu's busy four-day tour on Saturday that the visit was particularly fruitful and has opened a new chapter of cooperation between the two countries.

Noting the deep, complicated changes in the international situation, Yang underscored the importance of Hu's frank, in-depth talks with US President Barack Obama, and he hailed the consensus reached on bilateral relations and a host of major regional and global issues.

The minister said the joint statement issued during the visit was instrumental to reinforcing strategic trust between the two nations, which has been - and will remain - a key concern for Beijing and Washington.

The joint statement, in which Washington reaffirms its commitment to the one-China policy, reflects both nations' desire to improve understanding and reinforce trust. It outlines a package of exchange measures to help shore up that trust, Yang said.

BEIJING - The central government will expand property-purchasing limitations to second- and third-tier cities as it steps up efforts to cool the real estate market, a report said on Sunday.

Authorities have drafted a list of cities to which the purchasing limit will apply, the Chongqing Evening News quoted an unnamed vice-ministerial-level official with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as saying.

The list will include Qingdao city in East China's Shandong province, and several cities in Northwest China's Shaanxi province and South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the report said.

If the listed cities' leaders fail to implement the limits, they will be invited to have a "face-to-face chat" with the ministry, the report said.

Beijing became the first city to adopt the limits in April 2010. They took effect in May. The rules forbid local families from buying more than one apartment in the capital.

Amendments will address prolific disputes on farmers?collectively owned lands not dealt with in recently implemented regulations

BEIJING - Legislators are busy revising the Land Administration Law to curb forced demolitions on "collectively owned" - meaning rural-land after an updated housing demolition regulation on State-owned property took effect on Friday.

Most of the country's land requisition problems took place on collectively owned property, which was not covered in the recently implemented regulation. These conflicts can only be addressed by adjusting the national land management law, officials from the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on Saturday.

"Expropriations of State-owned and collectively owned land are separately regulated by two different rules - the regulation relevant to houses and compensation on State-owned land, and the Land Administration Law," unidentified officials with the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development told Xinhua News Agency.

"So, conflicts that occur on the two kinds of land should be resolved in different ways."

BEIJING - Beijing is planning to build China's first design exchange to offer a platform for design trading and boost the country's burgeoning creativity industry.

"China enjoys a tremendous market for both manufacturing and consumption, and sees a growing demand for design industry and an increasing supply in this regard," Song Weizu, vice secretary-general of the China Industrial Design Association, said Sunday.

In Beijing alone, there are about 1,000 governmental design businesses and 20,000 privately-run design companies, said Song, who is also secretary-general of the Beijing Industrial Design Promotion Association.

"But there is no public platform in China for design suppliers and those in need to find each other, and the two parties have to contact each other in a point-to-point way," he said.

"That not only lowers market efficiency but also hampers industry expansion," he said.

Song said the China design exchange will open this year if "everything goes smoothly."

"Some international design companies in Britain, Republic of Korea, Italy and others have voiced interest in the design exchange," he said.

When it comes to the intricate imperial robes of ancient royalty, only one family can do a makeover. Wu Yiyao visits a clan of specialists in Suzhou that has been doing that for six generations, and counting.

Even the emperor's best clothes are subjected to wear and tear, especially after hundreds of years. So it did not surprise Wang Jialiang when officials from Beijing's Palace Museum turned up at the doorsteps of his suburban Suzhou workshop bearing the imperial jacket of the Emperor Qianlong (1735-1796). They wanted repairs done for the centuries-old robe, and Wang and his family of kesi craftsmen were the only people who can do the job. Kesi is an intricate weaving process and the word literally means "carving with silk?

BEIJING - The national railway system is going through a harsh test, with increasing pressure from passengers who lined up all night for a train ticket and the icy weather in the southern part of the country that could disrupt transport at any time.

A flood of people have waited in line before ticket windows at Beijing's several railway stations over the weekend, and tickets for all trains leaving Beijing were sold out in only 30 minutes after being put on sale on Saturday morning, the Beijing Times reported.

Tickets sold over the weekend are for ordinary trains leaving in the few days before the eve of the Spring Festival, which falls on Feb 3 this year.

SHANGHAI - A man who took his clothes off at a local railway station office in East China to express his anger at being unable to buy a ticket home remained stranded and anxious for help on Sunday.

Chen Weiwei, a migrant worker from Central China's Henan province, earned national attention and sympathy when a set of pictures depicting Chen, clad only in his underwear, and confronting an officer, circulated widely online.

He had lined up for 14 hours at the west Jinhua railway station in East China's Zhejiang province on Jan 17 and 18 only to find the tickets he wanted to buy were all sold out.

A report by a Shanghai newspaper said on Friday that Chen had received five tickets with assistance from staff members at Jinhua railway station.

But Chen Wanjun, spokesman with the Shanghai Railway Bureau, said on Sunday that the report was not true.

He said the tickets were sold out, and that there was no possibility to help him, though railway authorities went all out to help passengers home during the travel peak.

Chen Weiwei, dressed in his underwear, challenges a railway station official after he failed to get a train ticket home.

BEIJING-- China's annual Spring Festival travel rush began Wednesday in freezing weather, with some 700 million people, or half the nation's population, expected to travel within the country during the 40-day-long travel period. China's Ministry of Transport (MOT) estimates that 2.85 billion passenger trips will be made during the period, 11.6 percent more than last year.

BEIJING - The volume of China's railway passengers during the coming Spring Festival peak period is expected to hit a new high of 230 million, an increase of 12.5 percent over last year's figures, officials said on Saturday morning.

A woman smiles as she shops at a Chinese new year merchandising market in Shanghai January 17, 2011. Hundreds of millions of Chinese geared up to welcome the Year of the Rabbit next February 3, packing temple fairs, entertainment parks, setting off fireworks and firecrackers and hurrying to train and bus stations to get home for the traditional holiday.

A man (right) writes Spring Festival couplets for residents of a neighborhood in Yining, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Jan 23, 2011. Almost 100 calligraphers gathered in the neighborhood and wrote couplets for residents as Spring Festival gifts.

It's a big world of the world's smallest creatures - from Zhong Ming's lens to the compelling close-up shots here.

Beautiful -- but perhaps different from traditional beauty -- through an entomologist's eyes, the microcosm of insects is perfectly demonstrated by Zhong. He sees it as a way of getting closer to Nature.

Calling President Hu Jintao's recently concluded trip to the United States a fruitful diplomatic maneuver, officials and analysts called on the world's two biggest economies to cement their burgeoning mutual trust, as they are almost certain to run into future disagreements.

Spring Festival travel, or chunyun, brings pains for not only migrant workers who are heading home, but also residents staying in big cities during the season.

In coastal cities, you will see lots of restaurants suspend business, express delivery companies cut service, household helpers absent, and calls to the carwash met with no answer. Due to an exodus of migrant workers, the service industries will become semi-paralyzed.

While globalization integrates the world into one village, China's national integration appears to be another giant movement. It has created chunyun, the largest migration in human history, and has set the path of life for hundreds of millions of people. It serves as a thrust for both prosperity and bitterness in large cities.

For many Chinese, the charm of big cities is colossal. Compared with taking risks in the US or Europe, chasing dreams in domestic cities seems less risky. The flow of labor and resources into larger cities has supported China's high-speed economic growth in the past three decades.

The flow of people from villages into cities also causes a series of problems, such as a swelling population, shortages in resources and environmental deterioration. Society has to accept these problems along with the benefits.

In the long term, the national integration movement will shorten the distance between different regions. But this is bound to be an ordeal. China's population migration remains a seasonal, pendulum-style movement at the moment. Lots of migrant workers have to rush in and out of cities, since they cannot really be absorbed into these crammed cities and get permanent residence.

Big cities are still unsure about the role these migrant workers play, and it is unknown how much social welfare the newcomers can share in the future.

National integration is an irreversible journey. The number of migrant workers has reportedly reached 9 million in Shanghai and over 10 million in Beijing. These people contribute a lot to the economic vigor in cities in East China. Yet the cities have not been prepared to give them equal social benefits.

China's urban-rural dual system is deeply rooted. At the same time, the income gap between coastal and inner areas is wide, and the registered residence system is still rigid in big cities. National integration struggles against all these facts. But it is not a well-organized struggle - it mainly comes out of spontaneous market forces.

The movement involves the fate of numerous Chinese. It is spectacular in a macro perspective and the details are sad at times. As the entire country face this goal of integration, the Chinese have to remain strong and patient.

Is social inequality in China getting better or worse? Two recent news items may help answer the question.

The State Administration of Civil Service has disclosed that over 90 percent of newly recruited public servants come from ordinary families, and not from elite or privileged ones. When juxta-posed with several scandals over the recruitment of officials' children, this makes for a typical Chinese scene.

They are both true, reflecting a complex China, full of imperfections, full of expectations and full of hope.

Swiss conductor Adrian Schneider had a simple dream: to bring good music to the people through an independent professional wind orchestra based in Beijing.

For a country that churns out prodigies like pianist Lang Lang and exports musicians to the world's top symphony orchestras, Schneider found it no easy task.

Despite a massive Chinese mainland base of string instrument and piano students, Schneider said he was surprised to discover he had no other choice but to build a multinational team to form a top-level wind orchestra.

Half of the principals of his Dunshan Orchestra hail from Europe, the US, Japan, together with several from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

BEIJING—For Chinese citizens following President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S., the message from Communist Party is loud and clear: The world's dominant power is finally treating China as an equal, and Mr. Hu, who steps down as Communist Party chief next year, is the man to thank.

A Chinese property developer's recent record-breaking bond issue highlighted soaring demand for ways to play appreciation of China's currency. It also underscores the limits of China's nascent efforts to create an international market for the yuan in Hong Kong.

With Chinese President Hu Jintao poised to step down by 2013, WSJ’s Jeremy Page tries to unravel the mystery surrounding Xi Jinping, the man most likely to take over the reins of the world’s second largest economy:

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao of China returned home this weekend after a trip intended to repair relations with the United States. But the next time the White House marches out the honor guard and polishes the crystal for a Chinese leader, it is unlikely to be for Mr. Hu.

The trade tensions with China sometimes seem like a rerun of the 1980s rivalry with Japan. But can Washington use its old strategies?

The real answer to the China challenge, like the competition from Japan in the 1980s, must come from the United States, the industrial policy thinkers say. A mix of several ingredients will undoubtedly be sought: skillful government policy, smart private-sector strategies, national investment in research and development for long-term innovation, and improved performance of the American education system. In short, all the things the United States should be doing anyway, but with an added measure of urgency because of the global competition that China epitomizes — an economic Sputnik.

China is definitely NOT Japan and has approached it rise to economic power in a completely different way. Japan was always hostage to America post WWII. China prised open America in the 1970's and has not looked back.

The author, Steve Lohr, is correct in saying that America has to learn to compete with China and go back to basics. Complaining about the Yuan and crying on Washington's shoulder won't fix the problem of a stagnated economic America.

Steve Lohr is also right in saying that America has a great wealth of talent and energy in its people and corporations. Harness that and America will compete successfully with China.

Rather than see the rise and rise of China as a threat to be controlled, America should see it as an opportunity to compete: compete in business, economics, philosophy and ideals.

America became a great nation because of its ability to embrace competition. It lost a lot of that greatness when it suckled up to mummy's tit (aka GFC) and started to cry like a baby (aka Yuan).

Thucydides knew fear can trap states into war. President Obama and Hu seemed to take a lesson from him last week.

SINOGRAPHConfucius takes a standBy Francesco SisciChinese authorities last week placed a statue of Confucius in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, near the portrait of former paramount leader Mao Zedong. The move to give such a public face to the great philosopher is in line with Beijing's decision to cut down on Maoist paraphernalia in the political heart of China. Maoists are up in arms.

Kaixin OpEd – Xiaosui recalls the Cultural Revolution (which she lived through) and how Mao wanted to wipe Confucius from Chinese history.

Why?

Mao came from a village in rural China. He had seen how lofty ideas such as Confucianism had not benefited the rural population and peasants of China one jot.

He wanted to leave all that behind and forge a new China.

Yes, his ideals were corrupted by power, but the Cultural Revolution was actually founded on a sound idea, to rid China of the old ways that had contributed to grinding the average rural worker/farmer into the dust.

However, an idea, a philosophy, as strong as Confucianism cannot be wiped from the face of history.

It is re-emerging in China as China is taking its place in the world as a leading power. A place it held for most of recorded history.

The leaders of China know that the Chinese people, in particular the youth, need a powerful philosophy to guide them.

The influences and temptations of China’s re-gained wealth are great, and distracting.

Communism is a strong philosophy, but it is mainly political and economic. Also, China has let it evolve to benefit the needs of China, rather than wear it as a straightjacket.

Confucianism has 1,000’s of years of history in moral guidance.

Communism may provide the physical sustenance to the people of China, however Confucianism will provide the philosophical sustenance.

As a child, Guo Haiping witnessed his disturbed brother Guo Enping being dispatched to a mental hospital after reading The Selected Works of Mao Zedong nonstop for three days and three nights.

Kaixin OpEd - This article featured on the front page of one of China's leading overseas English newwspapers (news website). Along with the statue, it says something of how China is viewing Mao's legacy. Not all bad, but in perspective.